Not surprising, given how it was used as a justification for the continuation of slavery (and Jim Crow) in the US.
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Reactionaries hate social change and want things to go back to how they imagine they used to be. They demand and welcome political reform that serves that goal.
Yes.
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For one thing, people who are advocating for right wing policies, even on the extreme right, are almost always talking about going back to an idyllic past. They are reactionary in the sense that they are reacting negatively progressive change.
And sometimes those reactionaries are in favor of rolling back change that has happened in society that doesn’t comport with their idealized conservative worldview with the “traditional” family at the center, and the a strong central, authoritarian government, usually with a monarch or monarch-like figure at the top.
There is nothing “changing at the root” of rolling back gains made by various minority groups, when you STILL live in a society that has not fully moved away from white supremacy…
You ARE aware that’s been true for a very long time, right… like since Europeans showed up and decided they’d “discovered” something “new”? They then spent the next few centuries kidnapping Africans and cooking up all sorts bullshit justifications in order to ensure that they stayed on top and others who did not look like them stayed “in their place”… THAT is the world that people like this disphit is seeking to impose on the rest of us. It’s not a “white only” society with nary a POC around… it’s a racially stratified society, with white men on top and everyone else hre for their use and abuse… You know, like during the era of slavery and Jim Crow… some conservatives have NEVER stopped seeking to bring us BACK to THAT ROOT…
There are other contexts around word usage that are not just about dictionary definition of shit. Like, @the_borderer is employing a very specific definition known to people who study politics seriously… sort of like @the_borderer has and is probably one of the most knowledgeable people here when it comes to left-wing politics and the working definitions of terms like radcial and reactionary. If she employs a particular term, you can sure as shit bet she’s thought it through and is deploying her terminology in a careful and measured way to reflects political reality… not just something Webster’s said…
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Radical means going to the root. Which can be useful when trying to fix things.
It’s right there in the dictionary and etymology.
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While Mindy and the_borderer are absolutely right about the limitations of dictionary definitions, I will note that Merriam-Webster actually does give ultraconservative politics in its definition of reactionary. So it’s not even cut and dry that you were following “the” dictionary.
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They sincerely believe every white person thinks the way they do and will jump at the chance to hurt people of color. They also think POC are all always one hair’s breadth from violence at all times. So they figure a mass murder will trigger the violence they think POC are hiding, which will give white ppl the excuse they need to exterminate POC. They think themselves heros. This is reinforced by the company they keep both in person and online.
It never occurs to them that all of this is nothing more than their sick dreams. They cannot conceive the idea that most white ppl, while often racist, don’t want to kill POC. Or that POC are people and not some barely-contained manifestation of violence.
Hmm. Shoulda known people here would beat me to it. Frosty beverages for all of y’all
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Just because the past they want to go back to is largely a fantasy doesn’t mean they aren’t politically reactionary.
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… it’s really not for us to say which was better
White culture is always ready to applaud when Black people forgive white crimes, but that doesn’t mean whites are entitled to forgiveness
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“Just because you’ve forgotten, doesn’t mean you’re forgiven.”
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Loving v Virginia, for one.
Honestly we really do need to acknowledge reactionary violence for what it is in the US. It’s well past time. Right now no one is currently threatening to shoot up a shopping center because they so deeply desire open borders and a safe place to give birth kwim? As much as the news has tried to convince me that a wave of dark-skinned mental-patient drag-queens was coming to collect children’s heads like some tongue-wagging opium dream from the core of white colonial shame… it hasn’t come.
But three places I have shopped have been shot up by incels and/or nazis in the past two fucking years.
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I think that’s what gets confusing about it maybe, like the fact that people think ideologies rooted in the concept of “the past” are necessarily rooted in fact.
People make myths all the time when it serves them.
At this point I kind of have to ask myself though what kind of people are out there blaming their day to day problems on the existence of biracial people though. The idea that countless members of my circle of friends and family are so offensive that they need to die is something you want me to believe is “progress” or “political reform?”
No.
It’s confusing enough without obfuscations like that.
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Nobody is ENTITLED to forgiveness. Fortunately, Tutu is not one of those Prayers in/salvation out transactional Christians that so dominates the “Evangelical” sects in the US. So a bloodbath was averted, AND the guilty had to admit their guilt, chronicled in detail, which makes it more difficult to deny it after the fact, as people did with the evil of slavery after the civil war.
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amazingly, you can type define [word] into a search engine and get a definition.
radical /răd′ĭ-kəl/
adjectiveArising from or going to a root or source; basic.
“proposed a radical solution to the problem.”
reactionary /rē-ăk′shə-nĕr″ē/
adjective
Characterized by reaction, especially opposition to progress or liberalism; extremely conservative.
Being, causing, or favoring reaction.
Opposed to change; urging a return to a previous state.
Radical means getting to the root of the problem, from the latin Radix meaning root. The radicals would argue with the revolutionaries for going too far, the reformists would argue with the radicals for going too far, the status quo would argue with the reformists for going too far.
Radical Republican means the opposite of what most people now expect it to, they were the people who thought Lincoln didn’t go far enough.
Reactionary means desiring a return to the status quo ante, a time before the present day, which is a common theme in race war rhetoric. Any progressive change goes too far for them and they will try to put things back as they thought they were, whether it is reality or imagined.
But as I said, I’m arguing with a nation where 30% of the population think Joe Biden is a Marxist. I’m hardly going to trust common usage with that going on.
I will not stop fighting this, because it is George Orwell’s definition of Newspeak
Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.
Either radical has a meaning, or it is just an insult to be thrown at political opponents.
And don’t get me started on how the definition of transgender and transition has been changed by journalists and TER activists with malice in their hearts. Common usage can be horrifically fucked up.
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Also, completely orthoganally, where the word radish comes from 
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Some radical solutions are obvious, and liable to produce a better society. Some are completely barmy, and some produce great harm.
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That could be said for pretty much any categorization you could come up with. The strength and weakness of any idea or plan is inherent in that idea or plan. Not in the group who puts it forth or embraces it.
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